y. Mr. Gwynne has
been dead so many years that my son"--it was always _my_ son--"has no
remembrance of his father."

Alas! that there should be some whose memories are gladly suffered to
perish with the falling of the earth above them.

A thought like this passed through the mind of Angus Rothesay. "I
fancy," said he, "that I once met Mr. Gwynne; he was"---

"My husband." Mrs. Gwynne's tone suppressed all further remark--even all
recollection of the contemptible image that was intruding on her guest's
mind--an image of a young, roistering, fox-hunting fool. Rothesay looked
on the widow, and the remembrance passed away, or became sacred as
memory itself. And then the conversation glided as a mother's heart
would fain direct it--to her only son.

"He was a strange creature ever, was my Harold. In his childhood he
always teased me with his 'why and because;' he would come to the root
of everything, and would not believe anything that he could not quite
understand. Gradually I began to glory in this peculiarity, for I saw it
argued a mind far above the common order. Angus, you are a father; you
may be happy in your child, but you never can understand the pride of a
mother in an only son."

While she talked, her countenance and manner brightened, and Captain
Rothesay saw again, not the serene, stern widow of Owen Gwynne, but the
energetic, impassioned Alison Balfour. He told her this.

"Is it so? Strange! And yet I do but talk to you as I often did when we
were young together."

He begged her to continue--his heart warmed as it had not done for
many a day; and, to lead the way, he asked what chance had caused the
descendant of the Balfours to become an English clergyman?

"From circumstances. When Harold was very young, and we two lived
together in the poor Highland cottage where he was born, my boy made
an acquaintance with an Englishman, one Lord Arundale, a great student.
Harold longed to be a student too."

"A noble desire."

"I shared it too. When the thought came to me that my boy would be a
great man, I nursed it, cherished it, made it my whole life's aim. We
were not rich--I had not married for money"--and there was a faint show
of pride in her lip--"yet, Harold must go, as he desired, to an English
university. I said in my heart, 'He shall!' and he did."

Angus looked at Mrs. Gwynne, and thought that a woman's will might
sometimes be as strong and daring as a man's.

Alison continued--"My son had only